On My Own
by WrenNightingale
Summary: Roy finds himself alone one night while thinking about his place among Team Arrow. He feels caught in a web when something happens to him. Summary sticks but I hope the story itself is better. Rated T cause I'm paranoid and I don't know when exactly in the series this would take place.


The young man found himself alone wandering the streets at night within the Glades, a place he still called home. He walked aimlessly through alleyways passing by buildings that had not survived Merlyn's plan and had never been rebuilt. His red hoodie stood out in the faint dull light that that the street lights cast if they weren't broken or nonexistent now.

"_Maybe I should go back, suit up and go on patrol." _he thought stopping looking down at his feet. _"But what good would that do?"_

He felt torn between going forward or going back; to fade into the night or to go back to put on one of the many masks he wore. Not to say that he didn't like putting on the mask because it gave him a few things that he had never had before, it was just getting hard. Hard to tell where Roy Harper began and Arsenal ended since the two were the same person yet very different. Being nothing like his mentor, the man who seemed more like an older brother as he saw him, who could shift between being Oliver Queen and Arrow easily.

"_I feel as though I'm several different people with no real identity." _he thought rolling his shoulders.

"Hey kid!" came a voice from behind him.

Turning to look behind him, Roy noticed a group of four men walking toward him, hands in their pockets. Knowing what that probably meant Roy began walking away looking for an open area so he would have more room to maneuver and less chance of being cornered.

"Wait up kid!" one of the men called. "We just wanna talk to ya."

"Yeah right." Roy muttered picking up his pace.

He hated running from a fight but with the way the others had been watching him lately being in a fight without having been on patrol was something he did not want to get into. Though his pride kept him from completely disappearing from view of the four guys because in a way his pride was his prison. Pulling his hood up he looked around realizing that the area around him opened up as he passed beneath an overpass that had survived the quake and slowed down some.

"Alright kid this is far enough." the same man who had been talking said as they caught up to him. "You're Harper right?"

"Who's asking?" Roy asked turning toward the speaker.

The man gave him a feral grin "Someone with a message to the Arrow."

"I don't know who the Arrow is so you're wasting your time."

"That's not what we've heard."

Roy sensed danger from the speaker as the men surrounded him all smiling at him like he was some sort of spectacle for them. Talker produced a knife from his pocket and Roy backed up ready for a fight when the other three moved fists aiming for the young man in red. Roy dodged using his street learned acrobatic skills to avoid their attacks and began to fight on his own like he had for most of his life.

"Grab him!" Talker yelled furious.

Roy flipped out of the way of knife not wanting to get stabbed again like he had been when he had saved Thea. He was so focused on fighting that the moment that his phone vibrated he lost balance and a fist connected with the side of his head. Blacking out for a moment he felt someone grab his arms to hold him up while keeping him on his knees. He felt blood ooze trickle down his temple from a cut on his head and also from his split lip as his head was yanked up by his hair.

"Some tough guy you are, kid." Talker told him delivering another punch to Roy's face.

The young man's head snapped to the side blood poured out of his nose as he glared at Talker who just laughed at him with his men. Roy looked at the two holding his arms then to the fourth man of the group who stood off to the side of Talker. Talker meanwhile knelt so that he was eye level with him and waved his knife in front of the young man's face like he was trying to scare him.

"Now when you see your arrow friend you let him know to stop messing with our shipments." Talker told him tracing his cheek with the knife. "Cause if he and his little sidekick appears again we'll find you but he'll never be able to find you again."

"Is that a threat?" Roy asked with a smirk.

He bit his lip to bit back a scream as the knife that had been hovering over his cheek was suddenly plunged into his left shoulder. He grunted as Talker twisted the blade before pulling the blade out slowly a sadistic grin on his face.

"Believe me now, kid?" he asked Roy who struggled to get free now.

The man holding his left arm though twisted it sending a shockwave of pain and dread through him to the point where he collapsed. The only thing that was keeping him from the ground was the fact that he was being held still as blood turned his red hoodie crimson.

"You tell your friend- Ahhhhh!" Talker screamed as something hit him in the back.

As he fell forward Roy caught sight of the green fletched arrow sticking out of the man's left shoulder blade. He breathed a sigh of relief as he was dropped to the ground while the other three men tried to turn tail and run away. But there was no escaping the Arrow especially when you hurt one of his team no matter which one he would not allow for anyone to hurt them. Roy rolled over onto his right side pressing his hand against his wound as he tried to force himself up into a sitting position.

"Roy." came Diggle's voice. "How you doing, kid?"

"Don't... call me... kid." Roy answered through clenched teeth looking up at his friend.

"Come on let's get you outta here."

Roy just nodded as Diggle helped him to his feet and toward the black van that was parked not too far away now. When the other man had appeared in it Roy wasn't certain but at the moment he realized and remembered that he wasn't alone in the world now. He groaned as he pulled himself into the back of the van with Diggle not that far behind, blue eyes locked with dark brown that showed concern.

"Let me take a look at that." Diggle said moving towards that younger man who may as well have been his little brother.

Roy nodded feeling like a child but relieved that he was out of the situation even if he had had to be saved by Oliver who would probably question him as soon as he returned. He hissed in pain as the fabric of his hoodie was pulled away from the wound as it bled freely. The older man looked over the wound with a frown on his face reaching for the med kit that they kept in the van. They didn't talk to one another as Diggle worked but there was a question on Roy's mind that he needed answered.

"How'd you... know?" he asked quietly feeling suddenly tired.

"Oliver's sixth or seventh sense of knowing one of us was in trouble." Diggle answered with a chuckle. "Felicity pinged your phone when you wouldn't answer her or any of us."

"So you came looking... why?"

"Because we care about you like you care about us."

Roy looked at Diggle without a word and nodded not wanting to open his mouth to spew something stupid.

Diggle shook his head, "You'll need stitches."

"No doctors..." Roy muttered looking away.

"Whatever you say but I think Oliver will be the judge of that."

"No... just patch me up back at the Foundry."

"You heard him Dig." came a voice he knew well, one that made him jump when the man appeared unannounced. "Let's get back."

Diggle was silent but nodded climbing out of the back as Oliver Queen otherwise known as the Arrow got in with Roy. The ride was silent as Roy drifted on the edge of unconsciousness feeling his mentor watching him out of the corner of his eye. He barely noticed when they arrived at Verdant closing his eyes feeling himself losing the fight to stay awake. The last thing he felt was someone picking him up in a way that would had embarrassed him had he really been conscious enough to care. And he knew who it was because what other man wore the same thing as the Arrow except for himself anyway.

"You don't have to fight alone anymore, Roy." he heard Oliver whisper before he was lost into blissful darkness.

And he knew that he wouldn't. He would never truly be alone anymore because there were people who cared and loved him now that he felt the same about even if he didn't really say it; he would show them.


End file.
